Comedy Tonight . . . and Tomorrow: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Laughter through the Ages

Comedy Tonight . . . and Tomorrow A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Laughter through the Ages Diana Calderazzo Laughter, it seems, is a timeless activity that has served to unify theatrical audiences since the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans; and research has indicated that the activity of laughing in which contemporary audiences engage is much the same as that experienced by ancient audiences. Furthermore, not only has the process of engaging in laughter in response to the theatrical event changed very little during the past twenty-five hundred years, but many of the basic situations and stock characters traditionally associated with humor have survived equally as long. From the comedies of Terence and Plautus to the scenarios of the commedia dell’arte troupes to the sketches of the burlesque and vaudeville stages, theatre through the ages has encouraged audiences to laugh at dueling brothers, doting lovers, and clowning comics. Contemporary theatrical pieces continue, of course, to draw on the classic comic tradition, perhaps none with such blatant aplomb as Stephen Sondheim, Burt Shevelove, and Larry Gelbart’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, featured for the first time on Broadway in 1962.1 During its successful first run, Forum reincarnated the ancient Roman farcical style of Plautus, recalling the historical evolution of comedy in the process and successfully encouraging contemporary spectators to engage in such farcical antics as have amused historical audiences for centuries. While it is widely agreed that these comic elements continue to elicit laughter, the cognitive basis of this laughter is not as widely observed. Cognitively, laughter relies on both biological process and environmental context. Thus, in reaction to a piece such as Forum, audience laughter Comedy Tonight . . . and Tomorrow 41 emanates from both a universal response and a reaction to social and cultural elements that have evolved through the ages. Drawing on the research of such cognitive scientists as Jaak Panksepp, Antonio Damasio, Robert Latta, Robert R. Provine, and others,2 I will endeavor to offer a basic explanation of this response in terms of audience behavior ensuing from those elements of Forum that have, through the ages, earned the reputation of being “funny.” This will require establishing a brief, but focused, foundation highlighting some of the main points regarding the nature of laughter and its relationship to emotional engagement in cognitive terms before moving on to analyze the emotional participation of audience members in response to particular elements within Forum. Utilizing this cognitive basis, I will argue that through an invitation to emotional engagement, the humorous elements of Forum offer its audiences both biological and environmental stimulants to laughter. First, according to several cognitive scientists, the activity of laughter works on a basic level as an indicator of emotional engagement. From Panksepp’s perspective, laughter is closely related to human engagement in “PLAY,” a term Panksepp and his research partner, Luc Ciompi, use to describe not simply an activity but a complex “emotional system.”3 Panksepp states that “the hallmark for PLAY circuitry in action for humans is laughter,” and “laughter . . . may emerge from PLAY motivation .”4 Thus, when human beings engage in the emotional system of PLAY, laughter often results. Though Panksepp’s definition of PLAY is wide-ranging and complex, he makes it clear that higher levels of PLAY may involve theatrical playing, appealing to participants on a “dramatic/ symbolic” level.5 The potential for PLAY, then, around which laughter is shown to function, appears to abound within the environment of the theatrical event. Second, engagement in emotional systems (such as Panksepp’s notion of PLAY) is necessary for the healthy and balanced maintenance of the human life form. Damasio defines this function of emotional engagement as “part and parcel of the regulation we call homeostasis.” “Homeostasis,” Damasio explains, “refers to the coordinated and largely automated physiological reactions required to maintain steady internal states in a living organism.”6 Thus, PLAY and other forms of emotional engagement appear to be necessary to maintaining human health and are thus part of the biological processes essential to our basic interaction with the world around us. If this is the case, and if, as indicated above, PLAY...